In recent years, many semiconductor memory devices having memory cells disposed three-dimensionally are proposed in order to increase the degree of integration of memory. For example, a semiconductor memory device employing transistors of a circular cylindrical type structure represents one such conventional semiconductor memory device having memory cells disposed three-dimensionally.
There is a risk that, when an erase operation is executed on such an above-described semiconductor memory device, the erase operation is not executed accurately due to the leak current flowing into the memory cells from various wirings.